Stuart M. Butler, who at the time was Heritage's Director of Domestic Policy Strategies, wrote the second chapter of a position paper with the title "A National Health System for America." (Heritage has a PDF version of this document you can download from their website.) The document was over 100 pages long, and envisioned a "consumer-oriented, market-based, comprehensive American health system" that would become "the model for the entire industrialized world." It was a strictly conservative plan, as evidenced by the inclusion of the idea of replacing Medicare with a voucher system (the same thing Paul Ryan is now championing, in other words).

In his chapter "A Framework for Reform," Butler lists three elements which would be required to remold the American health care system into his conservative vision for the future. The very first of these, in full (chapters referenced are from the same document):

Element #1: Every resident of the U.S. must, by law, be enrolled in an adequate health care plan to cover major health care costs.

This requirement would imply a compact between the U.S. government and its citizens: in return for the government's accepting an obligation to devise a market-based system guaranteeing access to care and protecting all families from financial distress due to the cost of an illness, each individual must agree to obtain a minimum level of protection. This means that, while government would take on the obligation to find ways of guaranteeing care for those Americans unable to obtain protection in the market, perhaps because of chronic health problems or lack of income, Americans with sufficient means would no longer be able to be "free riders" on society by avoiding sensible health insurance expenditures and relying on others to pay for care in an emergency or in retirement.

Under this arrangement, all households would be required to protect themselves from major medical costs by purchasing health insurance or enrolling in a prepaid health plan. The degree of financial protection can be debated, but the principle of mandatory family protection is central to a universal health care system in America.

Help would be provided in two ways. First, the tax code would be amended, as Chapter 3 describes, to give tax relief to individual purchasers of health insurance or prepaid plans and to provide tax credits for out-of-pocket expenses. Second, government would aid those who, because of income or medical condition, find the cost of protection to be an unreasonable burden. Such aid could take the form of vouchers for purchasing insurance or state-managed systems as described in Chapter 5.

The requirement to obtain basic insurance would have to be enforced. The easiest way to monitor compliance might be for households to furnish proof of insurance when they file their tax returns. If a family were to cancel its insurance, the insurer would be required to notify the government. If the family did not enroll in another plan before the first insurance coverage lapsed and did not provide evidence of financial problems, a fine might be imposed.

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They're going against their own facking "unconstitutional," "socialist" idea. The Heritage Foundation must be full of commies, socialists and unconstitutional liberals, facking NOT! Add chronic selective amnesia to the long lists of Repug Contard illnesses.

They're going against their own facking "unconstitutional," "socialist" idea. The Heritage Foundation must be full of commies, socialists and unconstitutional liberals, facking NOT! Add chronic selective amnesia to the long lists of Repug Contard illnesses.

This means what exactly? Unlike you on the left, we on the right don't follow our politicians in lock step. Ours are faulty, corruptable, fallable, and sometimes simply mis-guided. On the other hand they are head and shoulders above the politicians on the left so what are we suuposed to do?

They're going against their own facking "unconstitutional," "socialist" idea. The Heritage Foundation must be full of commies, socialists and unconstitutional liberals, facking NOT! Add chronic selective amnesia to the long lists of Repug Contard illnesses.

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There's definitely some jerkoffs in there, that's for sure.

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Well it proves that most of the people who oppose it are batshat crazy retarded muthafackers who march around with dumbass picket signs protesting shat they know nothing about, this is the jnew, and improved dumbed down anti-intellecual America.

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